For Your Review

Photo courtesy of the American Marketing Association

The evening of March 3rd, Camden was honored with a Marketer of the Year Award for 2013 from the American Marketing Association – Houston Chapter. We were recognized for our social media efforts, specifically related to our RentAdvisor campaign with ratings and reviews. We were able to demonstrate the power of proactively asking customers to review us!

Just ask and they will review! Our great customer service lead to more reviews and we saw a 30% increasein approval ratings. Great job!

Ratings and review sites have become a critical part of all shopping experiences, from cars to books to restaurants to apartments! Everyone wants to know about others’ experiences. When you think about it, nothing is really new about this concept; we used to call it “word of mouth” or referrals. Review sites make that “word of mouth” opinion able to reach and influence far more shoppers than ever before. Recent research shows that 90+% of shoppers use reviews when making buying decisions and that 3+ stars are needed for shoppers to even read reviews about a product or service.

In 2014, we will be reaching for the stars! 3 STARS or better! Providing living excellence and exceeding your customers’ experience is the foundation. Remember to ask your customers to share their experience with an online review on Google or Yelp. It does make a difference.

KRISTY SIMONETTE is Senior Vice President of Strategic Services and Chief Information Officer (CIO). She is responsible for information technology, marketing, internal help desk, and Camden’s Contact Center.